I was a little worried when I started reading this book as in the Dramatis Personae at the beginning, the author lists most of the female characters as "wife of". Not a great start. Then I read some of the reviews and I knew that there was a definite religious slant to it which is definitely not my cup of tea! But I read it anyways and I did manage to finish it. The novel's female characters turned out to be on the same level of ok as the male ones (none of the characters really had depth to them - I felt that they were too two dimensional). Generally I found this novel to be too convoluted with technicalities, particularly about firearms (of which I know nothing about). I felt it really didn't have much of a plot and was a bit too "God Bless America" for me by the end. ( )

Decent book. Not as good as his others. The book would be much better if he didn't write as if the only people who would survive TEOTWAWKI would be Christians. ( )

I previously read Rawles' Patriots and Survivors books so when I saw Founders that it was going to be more of the same. However, it is connected somehow to his other two books, but I don't know if this is a sequel, prequel, or just part of the same story. This third book continues part christianity, part apocalypse and part gun catalog. This is an odd book with a lot of copy/paste from the other two books. In the end, the nationalism wins out and all good people go home. It demonstrates, once again, that all politics is local and political power comes from the barrel of a gun...I was disappointed by Founders. ( )

More a diary of events than a continuous story with weapons selection and many religious contexts provided. ( )

I previously read Rawles' Patriots and Survivors books so when I saw Founders was out I was interested in reading it.

Patriots was a great book I'd recommend, Survivors took that formula ran with it but ruined it to a degree with the insertion of numerous Christianity references. Continuing on that path, Founders is basically 80% Christianity propaganda / waffle and 20% decent book - and that's being generous.

I get the authors a Christian, I get that he likes to write about characters that reflect his beliefs, but really, do we need the majority of most chapters spent on the characters talking to each other about how great Christianity is and how tops is it they have God in their lives?

According to this book, reading between the lines, I can summarise the two main points:
a) unless you're a Christian, you're going to die;
b) if you're a Christian but you haven't hoarded guns and food, you're the wrong sort of Christian following the wrong path, and, you're going to die.

If you're interested in apocalyptic fiction do yourself a favour and read Patriots, Earth Abides, Black Monday, Alas Babylon or Without Warning and not Founders. ( )